popmedium,

The forum is undergoing a total rearrangement as we speak? The forum may seem confusing at the moment but it will be masterly redone shortly. Please bear with us. The spreadsheet in also going thru it's final stages of "Tweaking". I will have my (staff ) take a look at it as soon as he gets done revamping the forum. Good help is hard to find now a days!

popmedium , as soon as I entered the EOBV-A in section D the hops started calculating. Have you just been missing this?

paudle wrote:Hi,

Thanks for all your help in the past. I am just finishing off a delicious batch of an Anchor Steam Clone. The next one I want to do is a Porter from the Brewing Classic Styles book. I have created up the BIABacus for it. Does it look correct? I took some of the advice above. The color and IBU don't quite match up.

Edit: I can't seem to attach file. I keep getting an error. Any ideas?
Edit 2: Now it worked

Good to see you got it working Paudle .

I have to be quick so here you go...

Hints linked a post of mine regarding IBU's on Brewing Classic Styles. Did that make sense? (I think it did as you have filled out Section D perfectly.)

The rest of your BIABacus looks perfect as well Paul.

Do not worry about the colour discrepancy. It says -5% but the difference between 42.9 and 40.6 SRM is undetectable and, those numbers are just based on a formula which is, at best, a guestimate. (The reason for the differnece by the way boils down to kettle efficiency - a long story but it really is nothing to worry about.)

Having that colour discrepancy in the BIABacus is one of the last things we want to fix but we haven't thought of something better to put there yet - very annoying.

Colour is something that is emphasised to a ridiculous extent in some brewing software - the software favours getting the colour right above that for getting the flavour right. This is just another reason why we want to get rid of that Colour Discrepancy field in Section C.

In short, everything in your file looks great Paudle. (Move as much of that 3.5 L in Section W to 'before the boil' as you comfortably can on brew day.) Once you find out the AA% of the hops you will be using and type them on the right hand side of Section D, you will be good to go. (I think you know this already ).

Nice ,
PP

Hello

I am planning a Wee Heavy and have inputted the recipe from the BCS book. I think it is all looking good except if I leave the OG at 1.099 as the original recipe says. If I do this I end up with a grain bill of just under 30kgs and the mash volume is 106L.

Hmmm I am thinking that given I am trying for a VIF of 50L and the recipe provides an ABV of 9.7% that it is probably correct but I thought I'd ask just in case I am doing something very silly.

If I change the desired OG to 1.050 I get a much more respectable grain bill and ABV of 4.8% in line with what I have experienced before with the BIABacus.

I guess I am asking if this large grain bill is correct and if so do I have any other options other than these that I can think of:

Change OG to 1050 and brew a weaker brew
Change my VIF 25L seems to get it down to 13+kg
Add some D/LME into the boil to increase the OG

I'd appreciate any input.

Cheers

maevans and paudle, thanks for posting above. I appreciate that .

Homemade, that is a monster brew!!!

The only relevant thing I can offer is if you are asking the question...

"Is there any resource out there better than the BIABacus that will tell me what my EIK (efficiency into kettle and therefore grain bill) would be on an extraordinarily high gravity all-grain brew?"

...

The answer is no.

....

There are pages and pages that could be written here but I think you should do exactly what the BIABacus tells you to do and then report your results back here...

I'm totally buggerd atm but I really would like some time to read and reply to your post above more fully Homemade. If you can't wait for me to 'wake up' then just follow the BIABacus. The long and short of it all is that anyone who implies you can get predictable gravity estimates on such a high gravity brew is....

I don't even want to go there atm .

The main thing for all of us is Homemade is that you take a heap of measurements. 1.099 OG brews are never brewed - you are a pioneer. Make sure you have a mate around to help. Take as many measurements as you can.

If you do take a few kettle readings (volumes and gravities during the boil) then these will help you and others in future to know whether the BIABacus is as good as we crack it up to be.


PP

Homemade - last month I brewed a RIS with 9Kg grain plus 1Kg table sugar (10Kg total)and got 25L VIF at just under 1.090 O.G.

Your 30Kg for 50L VIF at 1.099 doesn't appear to be quite as "efficient" but doesn't seem too extraordinary considering (I presume) no sugar additions, and the higher gravity.

Good luck if you get to brew it, I don't fancy doing another high gravity one for a while now

Thanks PP and Mally,

sorry to say but I am not sure I fancy being that pioneering I think I'd rather hide behind someone else

I was just flabbergasted when I entered the info and saw the grain bill, like I said it is the BCS recipe so I have not special connection to it yet!

Problem is you cant fit that much grain into my 50L Braumeister even if I did two mashes in the same water which I have read some people do for large brews. I think I'd have to split it into three which just seems silly

So I guess I am wanting to do a brew that is fairly true to style ABV wise so it needs to be a minimum of 6.5% which the BIABacus says is an OG of around 1070, this equates to 14+ kg of grain, which I am not sure would fit plus water is still 90L which wont fit. Thinking further it seems to me the options are:

Change OG and brew a weaker brew of 50L
Change my OG to 1070 or maybe abit lower and fill the mash tun to max with grains and then top up with D/LME to get the right OG and therefore ABV
Change my VIF to get it down to 13kg which will fit.

I am brewing with a couple of mates so the volume is really needing to be 50L so reducing volume is really my final resort

Not planning to do this for a good few weeks so there is plenty of time to think it over.

cheers

Homemade wrote:Not planning to do this for a good few weeks so there is plenty of time to think it over.

Good! I haven't forgotten your question HM but am still short on time.

The BIABacus grain estimates are good. I certainly wouldn't be reducing them.

Have you read the "Sweet Liquor Shop " posts? If not, search and read those. I think the answer to your question is there, except for one catch, and I don't think it applies here.

...

And, the other thing, that I might be totally missing because I haven't slowed down and read all you have written carefully, is that you could well be making the mistake of thinking you can get any volume of beer you want out of any size kettle...

Do you think you are doing that? (The BIABacus is uber-excellent at telling you if you are.)

Keep bumping this thread with your questions/thoughts or progress HM.

Cheers PP

I think I realize with help from the BIABacus that I cannot always end up with the same volume in my vessel. I think I realize the OG (among other things?) will have an impact essentially a high OG will restrict me.

I would prefer to end up with 50L so if that is my limiting factor I have to compromise somewhere else...I realize I can add water to the boil to reduce mash volumes but this will increase grain volume? Therefore it seems I have to play the game of twenty questions with OG and water added to the boil until I max out my mash volume With the highest OG that will fit?

Or

Maybe...and I'm only guessing here...I can add some D/LME into the boil too boost OG?

Not sure if what I've written can be followed easily?


Cheers

Homemade,

Maybe...and I'm only guessing here...I can add some D/LME into the boil too boost OG?

I can't answer any questions about BIABacus but I can answer this one. You can add anything to the boil like DME, table sugar, honey, hard candy or frosted flakes cereal to raise the OG. Do you need too? That is the question.

If you follow a recipe carefully and do your best to be close to the requirements (times, temperatures, amounts of grain) than that all you have to do. Don't worry about meeting the results of BIABacus or any other program. Don't over think yourself and make this harder than it is. I don't use anything but a printout of someones recipe and I try to give them the credit buy trusting their judgment.

Not all recipes are great but after a while you will be creating your own and want to share your triumph with us. I will be looking for them someday? good luck!

Thks BB

I certainly expect us to devise our own recipes but we thought we'd get a few under our belt so we have something as a comparison I realize that's gonna be hard to do (compare) but at least we get some idea about what is needed and what it might taste like before we change things around.

The issue here is the qty of grain needed to produce the OG. it won't fit so I'm really checking if my options are to either reduce the qty or the OG or brew same qty and add some extract ( or whatever) to boost the OG.

Cheers

Homemade,

I want to clarify my last post. When you start brewing it is easy to get overwhelmed with too much information. It's a byproduct of our internet information overload. BIAB is the perfect way to brew. Very simple and very good beer. I prefer the simple style of brewing because I am very lazy. This makes BIAB perfect for me because I just need a pot, heat source and a bag of grain. Less chance for me to muck it up!

I believe new brewers should concentrate in their first brews with just getting the process down and understanding what is going on. The process is so very simple that it just seems like, "Is this all there is to it?" Once the process is understood then we can get more involved with particulars.

Most brewers really like to make a good and "repeatable" beer. A beer they can enjoy time and time again. Perfectly done. This is where programs like BAIBacus come in. They can make the process perfectly repeatable and very transferable between brewers with different set ups. It takes a bit of time to get up to speed, but when you have completed your initial setup it more or less is always the same.

The upshot of all of this is start slowly, understand the process and then add more complexity. You can get as complex as you want and add as many "beer toys" as your pocketbook will allow. I prefer simple but most want more fine tuning. Cheers, and I hope I didn't ramble on and further confuse you?

Thks BB

That makes sense, sorry but I did not read your first post that way.

We have been brewing for a year or more now, previously it was extract based with a partial mash but we really only have three BIAB's under our belt so in this sense we are beginners.

You are right in that there is so much info out there and unfortunately much of it is contradictory, I am also abit on the lazy side and want ease that's why I bought the Braumeister...I dont even have to turn the gas on I have to say I find this site much more definitive than the others and I like that, rather than getting a thousand contradictory views you tend to get short and honest answers that you can trust.

I find the BIABacus very useful for scaling the recipe, there are three of us in our brew clan and we need a decent volume to go around, we brew to put 50L into the fermentor and most recipes are obviously for lower volumes. This is why the BIABacus is good.

Anyway I'm rambling so thanks again for the advice much appreciated.

Homemade wrote:Cheers PP

I think I realize with help from the BIABacus that I cannot always end up with the same volume in my vessel. I think I realize the OG (among other things?) will have an impact essentially a high OG will restrict me.

I would prefer to end up with 50L so if that is my limiting factor I have to compromise somewhere else...I realize I can add water to the boil to reduce mash volumes but this will increase grain volume? Therefore it seems I have to play the game of twenty questions with OG and water added to the boil until I max out my mash volume With the highest OG that will fit?

Or

Maybe...and I'm only guessing here...I can add some D/LME into the boil too boost OG?

Not sure if what I've written can be followed easily?


Cheers

I would ask you to repost your BIABacus here with the correct "KETTLE CAPACITY" in Section B. If you are brewing in your Braumeister 50L, you have the capacity at 85.1L.

We can then help you with your best options.


MS

Hi

I revisited the urn with a new measuring stick, more light and without my wife chatting to me while I measured it

I am confident the original measurements are correct, so the urn is 85.1 litres.

At the end of the day, I am a novice so I am happy to brew what works without too much mucking around.

I full volume mash in my Braumeister, whereas it is designed for a sparge, but what with the size of the malt pipe and what I have read it all seems too hard for me, I'm with Bob when it comes to doing it the easy way. So for the three brews we have done so far we have added the full amount of water as per the BIABacus and BIAB. This has proved a learning curve and entertaining at times but I think we have the process sorted now.

Thinking about it more, the biggest restriction is the amount of grain that can fit into the malt pipe for a single mash. I am not 100% sure what that amount is, I think from what I have read, it is 13kg possibly 14kg but lets say 13kg to be on the safe side. I have had 10kg in there and there is definately plenty of room so I am confident with 13kg. Therefore whatever I brew cannot use more than this. This was not in my previous posts.

Therefore it seems if I stick to a pure BIAB method, and 13kg of grain I have to compromise, I either have to reduce the VIF or reduce my OG and therefore ABV.

I was hoping to get more out of it and a higher ABV but I realise I can't. Hence the question about boosting OG with LME.

Anyway here is the file again, in this file in section C I have reduced the OG to 1.055 and in W I have allowed for 5L to be added at the start of the boil (otherwise the mash volume is 83L which is a bit close for comfort). This arrangement gives me a grain weight of 13kg.

Interested to hear from you guys on it.

Gheez this BIABacus really makes life easy when trying to scale a recipe such as this to fit.

Homemade, sparging with the BM is easy. Just have some hot (75C)water on hand to pour over the screen after you lift the pipe.
My usual method is to work out my TWN with the Biabacus, dough in with the slightly less water than BM suggests, then I top up the water close to the top of the pipe. This gives my the maximum volume of water that I can use. The remainder of the TWN I set aside for the sparge.
NB: I always dough in at 55c and ramp up to sacch rest temp. This is so easy with the BM, why not? This also negates the need for a specific strike water temp.

Homemade, it's great to see you getting some excellent answers here. I love BobBrew's telling you to concentrate initially on process rather than numbers and MS asking you to post your BIABacus file and Lylo talking to you on Braumeister stuff!

They all may sound like mixed messages but I suspect you are not seeing them that way and are actually getting straight away to the heart of things ...

Homemade wrote:Cheers PP

I think I realize with help from the BIABacus that I cannot always end up with the same volume in my vessel. I think I realize the OG (among other things?) will have an impact essentially a high OG will restrict me.

I would prefer to end up with 50L so if that is my limiting factor I have to compromise somewhere else...I realize I can add water to the boil to reduce mash volumes but this will increase grain volume? Therefore it seems I have to play the game of twenty questions with OG and water added to the boil until I max out my mash volume With the highest OG that will fit?

Or

Maybe...and I'm only guessing here...I can add some D/LME into the boil too boost OG?

Not sure if what I've written can be followed easily?


Cheers

Yep, and I am very impressed. Let's not go near D/LME though eh? I think the next thing for you is to dig up and read the "Sweet Liquor Shop" posts. These posts will give you a fast read of how more or less ingredients affect quality and other things.


PP

P.S. There is a lot above to absorb. I particularly like BobBrews saying, "When you start brewing it is easy to get overwhelmed with too much information." How true is that?

Bob and I had a Skype last night and discussed this eternal dilemma of too much information and as to when numbers are most important and when they are not. I think we are getting much closer though to being able to prescribe a nice way to approach your first brews .